Automatic breadmakers for home use are becoming increasingly popular, in part because the user is able to prepare specialty and custom loaves of bread of a type not available or not readily available at commercial outlets. Another reason for the popularity of such breadmakers is that bread can be consumed when warm, i.e., immediately at the conclusion of baking. Warm, freshly baked bread has a unique aroma and texture that adds to dining pleasure.
There are a number of examples of automatic breadmakers in the patent literature. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,415,799 (Tanaka et al.); 4,776,265 (Ojima); 4,836,683 (Aoyama); 4,870,896 (Asahina et al.); 4,903,587 (Nagasaka et al.); 4,977,822 (Seo et al.) and 4,984,512 (Takahashi et al.) depict but a few. In some, like the breadmaker of the Ojima patent, there is no way to view the inside of the baking chamber with the lid closed. Others like those of the Tanaka et al., Takahashi et al. and Nagasaka et al. patents have viewing windows.
Despite the growing popularity of automatic breadmakers, they produce a loaf of bread which only modestly resembles the size, shape and appearance of a normal bakery loaf. For example, the breadmakers shown in the Asahina et al. and Seo et al. patents have upright rectangular "can-like" containers with top lift-off lids. In fact, with their upright dough containers, single bottom kneading paddles and top lids, such breadmakers resemble blenders used to mix liquids or chop food. Such breadmakers produce a loaf of bread which, in cross-section along a plane normal to the upright long axis of the loaf, is square or substantially so.
Further, the dimensional proportions of the loaf made using, e.g., the Asahina et al. and Seo et al. breadmakers are unusual. Such loaves are substantially cubic. A loaf made using the Ojima or Aoyama breadmaker is cylindrical and, therefore, even more unusual --and more difficult to slice or to toast in a conventional toaster which accommodates "rounded-side" rectangular slices from a normal bakery loaf.
Yet another undesirable aspect of known automatic breadmakers is that the upright dough-containing pans thereof (or, perhaps more accurately, "cans") are devoid of kneading paddles sufficient in number and location to mix dough in a long horizontal pan.
Still another feature of known breadmakers is that they do not accommodate (or at least do not easily accommodate) "wide-side" insertion and removal of a bread pan through a wide-mouth opening. For example, the Tanaka et al. patent depicts a breadmaker having a flat, vertical door which swings in a vertical direction about a horizontal axis. When such breadmaker is at counter height (as breadmakers usually are), the user must stoop and reach to place or remove a bread pan.
The breadmaker of U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,048 (Aruga et al.) has a flat, horizontal top-opening lid hinged at the rear and including a view window. A top-opening lid often precludes using the breadmaker on a counter top having cupboards thereabove --there simply isn't clearance to open the door. And the pan must be placed and removed from the top.
To put it another way, the breadmakers of the Tanaka et al. and Aruga et al. patents do not have an oven chamber opening permitting both front and top access to such chamber. Such breadmakers do not permit "angled-and-down" pan insertion into the chamber.
U.S. Pat. Nos. D183,216 (Johnson et al.), 2,478,253 (Doner), 2,502,685 (Warner), 4,903,587 (Nagasaka et al.) and 4,984,512 (Takahashi et al.) show cooking apparatus with various door arrangements including an angled "wrap-around" door which hinges upward (the Johnson et al. patent), a hood-like door which pivots upward (the Doner patent) and curved or plural-plane top-hinged doors (the Warner, Nagasaka et al. and Takahashi et al. patents.) Such door arrangements need extra counter-to-cupboard clearance or impair easy access to the apparatus interior.
An improved breadmaker overcoming some of the problems and disadvantages of the prior art and producing a loaf of bread having a configuration like that of a normal bakery loaf would be an important advance in the art.